


The Morning Is the Same Everywhere

by CrookedRain_CrookedRain (OurFontIsBigger)



Category: Cricket RPF
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-08
Updated: 2017-06-08
Packaged: 2018-11-10 14:14:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 11,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11128533
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/OurFontIsBigger/pseuds/CrookedRain_CrookedRain
Summary: He’d thought it had been the end the year he retired from international cricket but he’d found himself, the next spring, soaked to the skin in the County Durham rain, first April in the North East for eight years. The smell of the grass at the Riverside on those wind-whipped early afternoons of the season; taking his fill of it in the dog days of his career. Two jumpers and trying not to shiver in the slips.





	1. Not All My Boys Believe In Science

**Author's Note:**

> // Standard Disclaimer //
> 
> This is a work of fiction and not intended to represent or speculate on the real lives of any person, it's just using their likenesses to write a story.

Probably you knew a person’s body too well once you started noticing new moles appearing. Paul’s hand, there, resting on Scotty’s bare back. Scotty had returned from a winter in New Zealand with one perfectly oval mole on his shoulder blade and a tan that stopped halfway across his hip-bones like a tide mark. _Well I’m not gonna lie in my garden with my cock out, am I?_ He’d said indignantly when Paul had remarked on the line and it’s starkness. Grayish cast what with the rain incessant against the window of Scotty’s room. None of that April heatwave they were promised and Paul using the dim light as an excuse for his gloomy ruminations on how last season was supposed to be the end of it. But Scotty had bound in, first proper day of training, wet from the rain, big grin on his face and hair soft and curling, looking like ten different iterations of a bad idea and so much of what Paul wanted. So he’d solemnly given himself up to another season.

Another season of lying; tumbling out one on top of the other at a bone-break pace. Another season of hiding in plain sight; barely believing the things he was getting away with, hand on Scotty’s thigh under the table in a pub, hand on Scotty’s stomach under the stripping summer sun at practise and every single person none the wiser. While in the distance the clouds started to roll in off the North Sea, gathering chat of possible fines and relegation, problems drifting in from the periphery, made suddenly stark against the background until they were impossible for Paul to ignore.

That summer when he got haunted by bad decisions, like the light was too white sometimes looking out over the stands. When Scotty seemed to appear suddenly, round a corner or by Paul’s side, startling Paul back into himself. The 2016 season and after all, this could be his last year.

 

 

Of course he’d thought it had been the end the year he retired from international cricket but he’d found himself, the next spring, soaked to the skin in the County Durham rain, first April in the North East for eight years. The smell of the grass at the Riverside on those wind-whipped early afternoons of the season; taking his fill of it in the dog days of his career. Two jumpers and trying not to shiver in the slips. By early July, after a winless start, he’d been given the captaincy. Taken it from Phil really, who’d stepped down good-naturedly with the odd few prodigal son jokes. And he’d stood there, back home, back up North, looking around the dressing room like _my lads, my boys._

They were all scrappy lads the way he’d been, when he’d come up from the juniors with his daft haircut and fondness for tracksuits. Even a posh saffer like young Keaton Jennings, well his mam was from Sunderland so he was of this place too, same grit and resilience even if he didn't realise it yet - that’s why Paul had brought him up. Sitting quiet in the dressing room, wide-eyed new boy with a plummy accent. And Stokesy, well Stokesy was less scrappy than an outright bruiser, freckle spangled and tattoos snaking down his arm. But still, there they were; the academy lads, the old guard. Less Harmy of course, who they’d sent down to Yorkshire on loan. _We’re none of us getting any younger, gotta bring up the academy lads, next generation y’know._ And Harmy had said _oh aye, Yorkshire is it?_ unreadable expression on his face, maybe he’d known then that he’d never play for Durham again. But still Paul had looked around that first time, full to the brim with the collected wisdom of his seventeen year career - _grit and determination lads - made of the sterner stuff - might not have the money they’ve got at Yorkshire and Middlesex but we’ve got the character - real salt of the earth and we’ll salt the earth with ‘em._ After all he’d not been the strongest, the most talented but what had got him this far? The fight, that’s it, and he’d fill every one of them with it. 

 

Scotty had turned up at the office late afternoon, midsummer of that first half-year as captain, when he’d just been starting to feel like the ground was steadying under his feet. Standing in the doorway, flushed cheeks and sweaty from training, sun behind him making a halo of his white-blond hair, wanting to know if he could ask Paul something. 

Scotty inhabited his body loosely, like he was really just rattling around in there. Made it hard to tell how deliberate a lot of the things he did were. Coming to sit on the desk without waiting for Paul to answer, same side as him, right up close. Looking to Paul like summer had just bloomed right in front of him, smell of grass and fresh sweat. Scotty sat with his legs slightly spread, damp shorts clinging to the tanned skin of his thighs and the air was just saturated with it. He smiled lopsidedly at Paul and started to ask him something about his technique. Paul more watched his face than listened to him talk. His face was always in motion, his odd, decidedly pretty mouth twitching like it was trying to slip away from him, one irrepressible eyebrow arching up his forehead and Paul was gripped by a violent desire to get on his knees between Scotty’s legs.

It hit him like being sluiced in iced water. Shivering, dropping to his knees and licking the salt right off the skin of his inner thigh, the look of shocked supplication on Scotty’s face, how he’d get him all skipped heartbeat and trembling. 

‘Fuck off.’ he said to Scotty.

‘Y’what?’

‘Didn’t say you could come in, did I? Go on - away with you - I’m busy -’

Scotty grinned easily, hopping off the desk. ‘Alright, Colly.’

‘ - and take a shower, for Christ’s sake, eh?’

‘Aye, skip.’ said Scotty with a little mock salute, already out the door. Paul had half a mind to close it after him and lock it against further intrusions. The thing was, Paul had been round the block a few times, he knew what this was - crossed wires, resurfacing of juvenile desires - at that point it had been years since he’d acted on it and there was a lot of safety in that. Lads like Scott Borthwick were impossible and it was that impossibility that was sustaining him through those early months. Didn’t matter how Scotty seemed uniquely loved by the rare North East sun; how Paul himself had already loved him for being a leggy from Sunderland. Didn’t matter how his thick accent and barely contained mischief reminded Paul of the kinds of lads he’d grown up with, like spending too much time with him would make a tear in the thin film between the past and present, make Scotty a physical manifestation of all that nostalgic desire. He knew what this was, the size and shape of it, the limit formed by its impossibility, keeping Scotty at arms length and treating him with a detached, fond amusement.

And it worked for a while, through Scotty deciding he was going to sit next to Paul on the coach to away matches from now on, appearing in the aisle next to where Paul usually sat, like the ghost of bad mistakes future and saying _alright Colly._ It was impossible to dislike the lad, relentlessly enthusiastic and surprisingly quick and clever, like for all his daffy-ness there was something constantly ticking over in his head, the click of quick calculations. There on a golf-course in all weathers, stern look of concentration on his face - marking scores and trajectories; or the first time he’d turned up at Paul’s for a barbeque, looking around his house. Stood in the kitchen clutching a Corona and looking out the window at the low dipping hills, a gentle roll across the horizon. _Doin’ alright for yourself_ he’d said, eyebrow up and a faint trace of mocking intent, smiling at Paul and it was suddenly desperately important to him that Scotty be impressed by it. But he’d stilled his face and shrugged, coming to stand by Scotty. Scotty looked away, one hand trailing below the countertop, a finger’s-breadth from Paul’s thigh. 

His resolve was sorely tested one evening that August, hazy wash of sun tripping over the seatbacks on the bus, the way it’d always seem to Paul when he looked back on those summers; wherever Scotty was, sticky light caught on his cheekbones, collarbones, forearm, a regular solar torment. He’d pushed one leg of his shorts up to show Paul a bruise on his upper thigh, _fuckin’ vicious it were, caught it right on me thigh._ Pooled blood beneath the skin, a pond of pinkish-red run to a mottled purple at the edges. Paul was already restless, on the way back from a tight sixteen run win against Nottinghamshire, Woody getting his first fivefer and now he was carrying on at the back of the bus. For all that his bowling success felt like a payoff for Paul, he could’ve cheerfully throttled the lad on occasion. Not that Scotty was much better but he was quiet for now, studying Paul’s face.

‘Fucking painful that -’ he said, still looking for a reaction.

Sometimes Paul had thought that maybe Scotty was attracted to him in some way, drawn to him in the way younger men are to older men who’ve achieved the very thing they want to, a kind of hero worship or like Paul was an oracle from the glorious sporting future. He didn’t suspect - or couldn’t allow himself to suspect - there was anything more behind it than wanting attention or approval, some sign he was doing alright at this cricketing lark. Just Badger licking up to him, the way the lads always said. But there was a tight, itchy feeling under his skin and he reached over and ran his finger quickly from the edges of the bruise to its centre, pressing down as he went and then pushing hard like he was trying to shove him away. Scotty flinched and laughed - that daft giggle of his.

‘Ow!’

‘You want toughening up, lad.’ Paul said, evenly, his mind a riot of inappropriate images, the way it comes to you when you try to suppress something for too long, all these words careening out, things he’d never consciously think or say - _fuck him so hard - bend him over the - his lips - his cock - get my hands on his -_ a bricolage of verbs and body parts. But Paul had not been a professional cricketer and a man hiding certain inclinations all these years that he couldn’t keep a perfectly straight face. Looking at Scotty almost like he was daring him to find some trace of it in his expression. 

Anyway he’d often felt like he was getting away with something stumbling towards the end of that season, lit up by the sort of unconscious narcissism inherent in moulding a team in your own image. Paul had never wanted to be Durham captain, not really, but finding himself in the position he’d proceeded the only way he knew how; the fight and a determined placing of one foot in front of the other. Two wins down and everything still so tentative, a finger on the bruise of Scotty’s thigh like he was tempting something to break. Like he wanted to say to him _don’t look at me like that, I’ve no fucking clue what I’m doing._

But it worked and kept working, over the finishing line and fighting to the last until they could all sink their relief into the bottom of their pint glasses. The night spinning and shuddering out of control and at some point Paul went off to find Scotty, the way you get sometimes into your beers and thinking _well what’s the very worst thing I could do right now?_ And then, the answer.

Outside, leant against the wall and a hand over the lower part of his face, muttering something to himself.

‘Scotty?’

‘Ah fuck I tripped and like - I think -’

Paul walked over to him. ‘C’mere let us look at you.’ he said briskly, taking Scotty’s jaw and tipping his face up a little. His nose was bleeding slightly, smeared wetly on his upper lip and before Paul had thought better of it he’d pulled his shirtsleeve down over his hand and used it to wipe the blood away.

‘Your wife’s gonna hate us for that.’ Scotty said, gesturing at the blood soaking through Paul’s shirt. Paul shushed him and gently pinched the tip of his nose to stop the bleeding.

Scotty laughed. ‘I can do that meself y’know.’

‘Oh you’ve definitely shown yourself to be good at looking after yourself tonight.’

Scotty grinned and leant back against the wall.

‘Oi, keep your head down.’ Paul said and used his other hand to push Scotty’s head forward. He kept his hand resting at the back of Scotty’s neck for a while, fingers in the soft hair at the nape, Scotty’s overheated skin against his palm. Muffled voices and music from inside filled the humid night air until Paul’s ears blocked with it, getting dizzy from following the loose wave of Scotty’s gelled hair with his eyes.

‘’S’nice that -’ Scotty mumbled.

‘What?’ But the question just seemed to tumble off into the night and Scotty didn’t answer.

‘Think I’m alright now.’ Scotty raised his head slowly and Paul let go of his nose, peering at his flushed face.

‘You’ll do.’ he said gruffly.

‘Yeah?’ Scotty was searching his face, smiling and Paul started to feel more off-balance than maybe the drink would account for. He raised his thumb to Scotty’s mouth, wiping away the last of the blood, slowly, dragging across the stubble, the skin of his upper lip as Scotty drew in a quick breath like a hiccup. Then Scotty’s hands came up on his shirt, the front of his shirt, the collar, touching fitfully.

‘Thanks for - yeah -’ he mumbled, leaning towards Paul. Paul’s heart starting up in his chest. Scotty was still smiling, like he couldn’t quite believe what he was doing.

Paul would look in the mirror lately, at the lines gathering portentously around his eyes and mouth and think about weathered rocks and things left in the sun for too long. It wasn’t vanity - or not just vanity - more like the ticking awareness of time passing and now he leant towards Scotty, all this dangerous _fuck yous_ , all this dangerous half-cocked desire rising up in him. Because he’d done it - five wins from the last six - he’d done it. Scotty knew that. Scotty knew what he was about and Paul pressed him back against the wall, gently, just to see if he could. Just to see how close he’d get. Scotty’s hands tugging on the collar of his shirt, looking at Paul like Paul was really something worth looking at. When else would he get this? Scotty’s odd pretty mouth, so close their lips were almost brushing. Paul murmured, ‘Jesus, Scotty -’, but it was a weak-handed delay and then Scotty kissed him. 

His mouth was startlingly hot, wet with the taste of beer and Paul could feel Scotty’s heart beating right out of his chest where he was pressed to Paul’s body. His arms came up around Paul’s neck, Paul’s hands crumpling Scotty’s shirt, fingertips brushing bare skin. Ended up in some dark, out-of-the-way corner, laughing and Paul catching every sound that came out of Scotty’s mouth. Felt like he was filling his hands with Scotty’s body. When else would he get this? His hand in Scotty’s trousers as Scotty gasped and groaned, hot breath against Paul’s shoulder until his shirt was damp with it.

He’d left him there, back against the wall, looking wrecked and gorgeous with it - although it’d be a few years yet before Paul would be careless enough to let such sappy words slip out his mouth. For now he just smiled at him and Scotty smiled back, biting his lip like he was trying to force his face into a more sensible expression, saying _fuck, Colly_ with something like wonder. 

Something like the wonder with which Paul woke the next morning. Wonder that slowly faded to a dull horror at how easy it was to lie, at how he’d not been smote by God - lightning strike and a charred corpse in the Northumbrian countryside. Instead he’d woke in the morning, as he had every morning for the past thirty-six years and with only the pre-beats of a thumping headache for punishment. 

 

 

2013, that was the season he’d move Scotty up to three, ask him on the bus on the way down to Nottingham and for all that he trusted his own cricketing judgement, there remained a nagging doubt that he’d been swayed by the knowledge of what Scotty’s breath felt like on his cheek, the wide-eyed look on his face when Paul had finally got a hand on him. Even back then he’d worried that he’d become unable to view Scotty objectively, that he looked at him and thought about what he needed not what the team did. Paul had barely seen him all winter, not like he was avoiding him exactly, just easier that way, after all he’d known once the season came it’d be hard enough to stop something happening again. He’d only a tenuous commitment to the idea of stopping himself anyway and then, that season, it was just one fucking thing after another. First the snow came, carried on bitter northeast winds from Scandinavia or Siberia, hushing everything in powdery drifts and burying the pre-season. When it melted there was still the debt and money troubles. Salary cap, no new players, no overseas signings; whatever the ECB was threatening them with that year. Like a stone in everyone’s shoe and Paul tried not to look too closely at his own paycheque. _Doin’ alright for yourself._ It could be he was leaching money from the club, could be there’d come a time they’d not be able to afford him. And then later there was Geoff Cook, collapsing on a run down by the river. The hospital visit, all their number coming together - strength in numbers, bigger than the whole - strength enough to propel them out the door, back out into the fight. _C’mon lads, let’s do it for Geoff, yeah?_ And then he was back at work a few months later, made of the sterner stuff. 

Even churning in the tumult he held out until July, one muggy thrumming day to stand for the whole summer, after all you didn’t need more than that. The last light of the sun staining the sky pinks and golds, a whole horizon of clouds soaked like ink on blotting paper, looking out the way across the beer garden. For all the sweat and sunburn and mosquito bites, everyone looked a little better in that light and Scotty right next to him, fairly glowing with it and smiling like an invitation. But only Paul could see that, the secret language of a past assignation, the warmth of Scotty’s thigh pressed against his and touching him with teasing fingers just enough that he followed Paul back to the side-street where he’d parked. Paul looked at him then, standing by his car, holding himself uncertainly as if he was on the threshold of something. Overhead a streetlight cracked and buzzed, bathing them in light and Paul cleared his throat.

‘You need a lift?’

Scotty’s mouth twitched into a little half-smile and he nodded. ‘Yeah. Please. Yeah.’

The air inside was stuffy with the collected heat of the day and Paul fiddled with the air conditioning as Scotty settled into the passenger seat. Sat upright, Paul looked at him, bright and barely contained, neat quiff slumped on his forehead like it’d just given up in the sun, one button undone on his shirt that Paul didn’t think was undone before and all Paul could think about was unbuttoning the rest. He thought _not here, not yet_ but made the mistake of thinking it while he was leaning, one hand on the handbrake, the other going for Scotty’s collar. Scotty leant too, flickering smile and eyes closed until his nose brushed against Paul’s, hot breath on Paul’s skin. _Not here,_ he thought as he kissed Scotty’s cheek, the curved corner of his lips, his mouth. He shook his head.

‘We should -’ he mumbled.

‘Yeah -’ Scotty said and kissed Paul, one hand coming up to the back of Paul’s neck, pulling him in and slipping his tongue between Paul’s lips. Paul could feel something coming loose in him, fingers crumpling Scotty’s collar and then palm flat, pushing him away. Scotty laughed and sat back in his seat.

‘C’mon -’ Paul said lowly, determinedly not looking at him and starting up the car. 

They drove out until the lights got sparser, right into the real dark of the night out in the countryside, up a muddy track between fields. It was late enough that probably no one’d come this way, save maybe lampers or midnight hare coursers and for a moment they just sat, eyes adjusting to the light. Then Paul had turned, met Scotty’s gaze and whatever was threatening to come loose in him earlier fell right out of his body with a sickening drop of his stomach. It was messy and hurried, Paul pushing the seat back so Scotty could straddle his lap, shirtless and Paul’s fingers slipping on his damp skin. And for miles all around them nothing but dirt and darkness and the creatures startled from the hedgerows when Scotty’s elbow pressed against the horn. 

 

Early on, Paul had often felt the need to give Scotty advice as though the whole history of his dalliances with men didn’t comprise a bit of inept youthful fumbling back in the day and latterly, the odd one-off fuck.

‘Men don’t cuddle, Scotty.’ he’d said, with more certainty than he actually felt on the topic, shoving him off the sofa one night, when they were watching Match of The Day.

‘Oh aye - do they not?’ Scotty said sardonically from the floor. ‘That was never a red! Fuck. It was just a good old-fashioned tackle that! Fucksake, they’re killing us.’

On the screen Lee Cattermole threw his hands up as if echoing Scotty’s sentiments. Paul gritted his teeth, shook his head. He’d been a Sunderland fan fourteen years longer than Scotty and for all he felt old, the glories of that FA Cup final against Don Revie’s Dirty Leeds happened three years before he was born, so the disappointments felt stitched into the very fabric of him. Still, he could recall the final as though he’d really been there to see Porterfield’s goal, the heroics of Jimmy Montgomery, Bob Stokoe in his red trousers running onto the pitch. How three days before the final the whole city had run out of red and white fabric; every shop and house decked in it, all the homemade rosettes and scarves. Street parties and men in their suits embracing the way they never had and never would again. 

It was a different world the one he’d been born into. Born on the downward slope, sure, but still near as full employment, one great big coalfield, all that soot and metal, the steelworks and towers. Football too, where, as they said, you could whistle down a mineshaft and a centre-forward would come up. Before you could quite believe how thoroughly the eighties could lay waste to an area. Not like he’d ever talk about it but Paul had occasionally thought how maybe it’d been different for Scotty. Not just a different world but how he probably hadn’t been the way Paul was. How he’d realised there was something off about him, the shock of it fading to a quivering guilt at the things he’d wanted, at who he’d wanted. How he’d known without anyone needing to tell him that he could never act on it, talk about it. Unspeakable things lodged in his head.

Scotty’s sexuality appeared no less ambiguous than his own. He always seemed to have a girlfriend, treating them all with liturgical attentiveness. The very model of a good boyfriend buying drinks and presents, opening doors and fastening the clasps of necklaces; cold metal on warm skin and his tongue stuck out the side of his mouth in concentration. Paul found he was able to look them all over with a kind of efficient compartmentalisation. Scotty looking slightly pained by the whole thing as Paul promptly forgot the name of every girl. After all it really had nothing to do with him. He got Scotty in all the leftover spaces, the way Scotty got him. 

Eventually Paul said, ‘As long as we take the Mags down to the Championship with us.’

‘That’s it,’ said Scotty, sighing, ‘am I allowed back on the settee yet?’

‘No.’ 

 

He’d known they’d win the Championship after Scarborough. Heretically destroying God’s Own County in God’s Own Holiday Home of Cricket. A seven wicket victory that he’d later be quoted saying was _as close as you can get to Test cricket._ Six thousand people to watch them in the late August sun and Stokesy with one hundred and twenty seven in the first innings, bowling thirty three overs in the second, red faced and sweating as the seagulls wheeled and cried overhead. And then Scotty too, on that last day, his lads, his boys, just the way he’d taught them, scrapping to the end. 

And after they’d actually won it, he’d looked around the dressing room, the way he had the first day of the season, with a kind of ecstatic pride; the sort of feeling that takes you out of your own body for a second. And then back again, coming to rest in it, a sly smile across the way to Scotty, meeting his eyes and watching as his voice got louder, daft eyebrow of his on the move again and Paul thought only about kissing him. 

By the time the old guard were all into their beers, they’d agreed it was about the North East. A few quietly, like trying to avoid an accusation that had not yet been leveled, that it was unsophisticated to think so, typical chippy northerners; others more strident about it but there it was. Born of the loamy soil and come out fighting. Because there was something about this area, Paul thought, something about the people, the fight, the grit and determination, you get knocked down and you haul yourself right back up again and you do it without the money and the entitlement and the cosseting. Like how they’d climbed Beinn Dubh up in Scotland the preseason, scrabbling hand-over-hand in the wind and the snow like a metaphor for what was to come. When it came down to it they were all of them part of something bigger than themselves, something that meant more, grown up together soaked in it, fed through the Wear or the Tyne. Came up through the academy together and Paul was on that line too, nearing the end of it but it didn’t matter much for once. He looked out over the Riverside, beyond the trees, the River Wear a soft curve of its east side. What did it matter to be spat back out into a place he was already part of. That was the beauty of it, the way the club was hewn out of its surroundings, he was already there.

Scotty came to stand beside him, dirt-streaked whites and sticky champagne hair. That was it though, if you just followed the river right to the North Sea, there was Sunderland, where Scotty was born; grinning at him now, nudging his shoulder and Paul felt the rightness of it. Him and Scotty, stood on the balcony, their bodies just barely brushing against each other, the slight chill in the air. Later, he’d go home with Scotty, like how nearing the end didn’t matter so much, just this one night him and Scotty wouldn’t matter so much either. It’d just be as it should be, two parts of a whole, taking what they could have of each other in the place where they both belonged. 

That winter Paul would watch on the tv screen as Scotty made his Ashes debut, looking impossibly small and impossibly far away and Paul’s whole body stoked up with a roaring pride. The way it had seemed then, that there was a direction everything was going in, that it was right and proper and getting better all the time. 

 

 

 


	2. The South Takes What The North Delivers

When he’d woke it was raining, spitting grey evening drizzle, dim light in Paul’s living room, the jarring harsh colours of his tv troubling the air around it and then Scotty’s head, resting heavily on Paul’s chest, his pale hair emerging like an island from the gloom. It was one of those nothing days in mid-June, sun skulking behind the clouds and it must’ve been 2014 because they’d been watching the World Cup, he remembered. One-nil to Costa Rica, Italy beaten and England sent unceremoniously crashing out of yet another tournament. Not that he’d seen most of the match, distracted as he was by the pressing weight of Scotty’s body, leaning heavily against his as if in protest at Paul’s rules around physical affection. And Paul, eyes fixed on the tv screen, let his hand drift slowly onto Scotty’s stomach, the way he did sometimes when he was nudging the boundaries, fingers catching and dragging Scotty’s t-shirt. But they were alone now. No one to see him press his nose into Scotty’s hair, breathing deeply. No one to see Scotty shifting and letting his legs fall open slightly. _Offside anyway_ Scotty muttered, shivering as Paul kissed his ear. 

Paul looked over Scotty’s head, across the room to the big clock on the wall above the tv. He waited for the second hand to hit twelve. It was seven twenty pm and he thought _just one minute._ Just one minute and then he’d kick Scotty off the sofa, sprawling and confused on the floor and Paul would laugh at him. Fondly. A slow, pathetic attempt to keep some distance between them. The season had started badly, a purgatory of draw after draw, strained backs and broken fingers. Scotty’s own still taped up and Paul could feel the rough strapping against his skin where Scotty’s hand was resting on his side. Paul put his hand over Scotty’s unthinkingly, pulled him closer, Scotty mumbling something. _Forty seconds._

On the tv the presenters were gearing up for the second match of the day. _It was 1992 when Switzerland last beat France, in a friendly at the Stade Olympique de la Pontaise in Lausanne. Roy Hodgson was the manager behind the 2-1 victory over a French side that included Eric Cantona, Laurent Blanc and the current French manager Didier Deschamps._

Paul kissed the top of Scotty’s head, a gentle press of his lips, moving his hand absently on Scotty’s bare back, something dangerous tugging up inside him. He could be anywhere now, anywhere at all and close his eyes and know exactly the feeling of the weight of Scotty’s body, the curve of his spine, wrinkle of his nose. _Twenty seconds._ Snagged in his brain, no way to un-know it now. _Seventeen seconds._

_While France’s backline has proved remarkably consistent, the Swiss attack with the likes of the in-form Granit Xhaka are likely to provide a stern test of France’s defensive capabilities tonight._

It must’ve been the first win of the season that had got him this way. Scrapping it out against Lancashire, trying to scramble away from the bottom of the table. Stokesy still coming back from his locker-punching exploits in the Caribbean and somehow contriving to get eight no-balls with the chairman of selectors watching on from the stands. _Eight seconds._ Scotty tripping up in the nervous nineties, furious with himself. But they’d stopped Lancashire twenty-eight short of their target and young Paul Coughlin had done alright for himself. The way all his lads were - undaunted making his debut, getting stuck in and racking up eighty-five batting at ten - just the way they made them in Sunderland. Maybe they’d done enough now to work off their sins. 

The rain started coming down in earnest, percussive on the roof, the light a little dimmer still and Paul pulled a blanket up over Scotty’s body and his own to keep out the chill sinking down on them. Scotty stirred and muttered into Paul’s chest, ‘Ugh - what time is it?’

Paul looked up at the clock on the wall. ‘Seven thirty.’ he said quietly.

‘Oh shit - sorry -’ Scotty started to slowly sit up, shifting his body off Paul’s but Paul stopped him.

‘Don’t have to y’know -’ he mumbled, pulling the blanket back up over Scotty’s shoulders.

‘Yeah?’ Scotty said, looking at the blanket, then Paul.

‘It’s uh - Switzerland France -,’ Paul gestured at the tv, ‘might as well -’

‘Yeah?’ Scotty smiled, ‘Could be decent that.’

Paul didn’t reply but he did kiss him and Scotty said ‘What’s got into _you_?’ 

 

That season became a slow unwinding, the summer unfurling before them, what little you get of it this far north, can’t expect to find answers in the sun you can snatch. Barely time to think about anything, got to take what you can; seeing it rise again and again through Scotty’s window, the windows of hotel rooms. Something twisting from Paul’s hands before he could stop it, before he’d noticed how often they fell asleep together, arms and legs carelessly touching. The subtext of everything they did now. Out for drinks and meals, golfing, at the Stadium of Light. _You don’t even remember Roker Park_ Paul’d say just to wind him up while Scotty protested that he did, his dad had taken him. There with his arm around Scotty out on the field after he’d taken another improbable catch. You could lose your mind in the gap between the surface and the depths, all that muddied water, pride and desire. 

Or worse, in the gym when Paul had managed to wrest control of the music back off the young lads and tried to put on a playlist he’d made and as Into The Groove bounced out the speakers Scotty had just looked at him, shaking his head and fighting down a grin _the fuck is this, mate?_ Paul was protesting and Scotty calling him old, saying he weren’t even born when this came out. _It’s a classic_ Paul said and Scotty laughed and laughed and Paul did too, like his resonant joy was just shaking it out of him, something in his chest gone carmine and pulpy. 

And then Scotty had got disastrously drunk on a night out towards the end of the season, back up in Durham after a one hundred and forty-one run win against Middlesex down at Lord’s. There was no need for it, going harder than everyone else and Scotty had always been a bit of a lightweight. Got the kind of drunk where every expression seemed to wobble on his face like a newly formed bubble, there for just a moment then gone. Walking back to the carpark, the humidity of the day dying into the damp pavement and Scotty looked at Paul with a bleary smile smeared on his face, like he’d just thought of something he couldn’t quite hold on to.

Then he frowned. ‘I do -,’ he started, testing the weight of each word, ‘I do love you, yknow?’

Paul stopped abruptly, grabbed Scotty by the shoulders, rougher than he’d meant to. ‘No you don’t.’ he said firmly.

Scotty looked at him, unfocused and confused. ‘No. I do - actually - actually I do -’ He paused and then added, as though it were a revelation even to himself, ‘I’m actually in love with you.’

Paul pulled him close, pressed Scotty’s head onto his shoulder, hand in his hair and a sinkhole collapsing open in his chest. The carpark was deserted, every other bastard in Durham was sensible enough not to get this twatted and want taking home at eleven pm and Paul muttered, ‘Don’t - just - you’re drunk - don't know what you’re saying.’

His voice rose towards the end, like something inside him was trying to clamber away from the hole. Scotty’s arms tightened around his body.

‘Ah fucksake - I’m not - I -’ 

Paul cut him off. ‘C’mon, I’ll take you home. Eh? Long day. Been a very long day.’ The truth of this suddenly seemed to settle heavily into Paul’s bones. Long day, long season, at least they were safe now, could finish as high as fourth if everything went their way. Scotty sighed into Paul’s shirt but Paul could feel all the fight slowly sifting out of his body.

‘Okay.’ Scotty said eventually, pulling back a bit, ‘Yeah - okay. Come back to mine?’

Paul let him go, nodding and saying with a creaky cheerfulness, ‘Just don’t throw up in me car.’

Paul had lain in Scotty’s room, unable to sleep. Scotty was passed out beside him, snoring in a quiet snuffly way. A glow just starting to form behind the curtains and Scotty’s room was lit in the soft bluish light of a summer dawn, picking out the clutter. His room was messy like a teenage boy’s and it always put the fear of God into Paul, like the piles of clothes on the floor were a judgement on his proclivities, even though it was exactly how his own room would have looked had his wife not been picking up after him the whole time. The sinkhole in his chest was still there, stable for now, dull and bearable and he pressed his face into the pillow and thought about leaving. First he’d get out of Scotty’s bed, sloughing the sheet wrapped tight around his body. Then he’d find his shirt and trousers where he’d dropped them on the floor, over there somewhere, taking quiet steps so’s not to wake Scotty. Go down the hallway to the bathroom, splash water on his face, not look in the mirror. Down the stairs to the kitchen, drink a whole glass to drown the taste of last night. Find his shoes, find his car keys. Most likely he wasn’t going to leave but he could see the path out the door plotted before him, every step; up, dressed, hallway, bathroom, stairs, kitchen, door. Probably wasn’t going to leave but he still told himself _get up - c’mon - you stupid cunt._ They were playing Northamptonshire in the next few days, then Warwickshire - the One Day Final at Lord’s, then Warwickshire again in the county champ. Northamptonshire, Lord’s Final, Warwickshire - _c’mon, c’mon - this is your fault._

He rolled over to avoid the tricky spreading light. It was too late though, it had already snuck to the bed, creeping up on the pillows. Paul looked at Scotty next to him, deep in sleep, the stillest his face ever was. They hadn’t even fucked, he’d just gone home with him for this; shared sleep and not even that. Just watching Scotty sleep. Just a hand on his back and bringing him a glass of water as he gripped the toilet bowl looking sorely sorry for himself. 

He reached over, touched his cheek and turned his face gently with two fingers, kissed him awake, Scotty making small protesting noises until he woke up enough to push Paul onto his back. Paul went over easily, Scotty’s warm body settling on top of him, kissing Paul then mumbling, ‘Gonna be fuckin’ dead when I wake up.’

‘You smell like a brewery, you do.’ Paul ran his hands down Scotty’s back, all tight muscle and soft skin, down to the curve of his arse and he started tugging his boxers off, Scotty lifting his hips to help him, kissing Paul’s neck. Well, he’d tried to leave. Scotty’s hands came up, holding his jaw and kissing him back into the pillow. 

 

 

After the champagne soaked celebrations, after they’d won the One Day Cup, after he’d licked the champagne right off Scotty’s skin because Scotty hated the taste, there he was, next spring in Dubai. The sapping heat and everyone scuttling between air-conditioned buildings like an admission of defeat, all of them Englishmen abroad with the sunburn to prove it. Stood in the slips next to Scotty and Stokesy and Woody with the new ball, beat right back over his head for four by the UAE batsman, three times in a row.

Woody stopped then, hard look on his face, gestured to the man’s helmet and said, ‘If you do that again yeah, I’ll hit you right on that badge there.’ 

Scotty whooped and Woody turned and walked back to the start of his run-up. The ball duly sailed back over his head.

‘Right. I told you what I was gonna do - this ball I’m gonna hit you -’ 

Twice. Right on the badge of his helmet like he’d promised, while Paul cracked up, doubled over; Phil saying _well he did tell you like._

Under the polarising intensity of the sun, all their zinced up faces, not like home at all and Paul was thinking _this could be it, my last year._ The joy always seemed fragile now, easily pierced with a needling melancholy, like he was already nostalgic for things that hadn’t quite ended yet. As if the colours were fading while the lad tonked Woody again next over - great eyes those UAE batsmen - and Woody came up to him, said he couldn’t bowl at the guy anymore, he was killing him. Bleached sky over the outfield and Paul could’ve sworn Woody’s face was vignetting or maybe he just had heatstroke. He’d remember it though, this match, little skiddy Mark Wood as they all baked in their skins.

That and then an ice cube he pressed to Scotty’s stomach, Scotty spread on Paul’s bed, in his hotel room one night; pressing it down, the heat of his skin slowly pulling apart the structure, sending droplets of water to run down, shivering little bumps and then the water soaking into his waistband. How he’d told him _stay still_ and then licked it up afterwards. And it occurred to him that maybe it was a little bit like coaching, that was the problem right? That same tone of voice came out; firm but gentle, _that’s it, that’s it._

Maybe things had already started to come apart that season, they’d had money troubles for so long it was hard to tell, became like the kind of chronic injury that eventually you just don’t notice that much. Every day a muddy ache in your ankle or your shoulder, just the way it is, easy enough to ignore. And back then he’d still had faith in the system, not like it hadn’t been tested but he’d taken a pride in the way they’d survived their deprivations. Took everything the ECB had laid on them and struggled right back up again without complaining. Hurtling through the start of the season, racking up wins, he’d thought they were back on that upward curve. Every year less money, less players but scrambling up. 

Maybe it was happening to him and Scotty too, the coming apart. The stumble and fall of living in the gaps between everything, between happiness and anxiety. Hiding in plain sight and something as simple as an odd look or a twinge in his hip sending panic flooding to the surface. Thinking _the fuck is wrong with everyone that they can’t see this_ and _is this when I’ll finally be punished for it._

Well there was hiding in plain sight and then there was whatever Scotty was doing on occasions like when he sat in the dressing room at Edgbaston and said:

‘Um. Have you seen what Harmy’s been saying about you like -,’ Scotty squinted at his phone, ‘What’s it - “ _Ruthless_ Paul Collingwood Ended My Durham Career”. _Ruthless._ ’

‘To be fair that sounds like summat from Take A Break. “Ruthless Paul Collingwood Ran Over Our Cat and Gassed Our Hamster.’ said Woody, trying to quickly deflect from any potential discussion of that whole situation.

‘Nah right. You wanna get Badge’s face on there right. Like “Ruthless Paul Collingwood Turned Down My Offer of Blowjobs for More Overs.” said Rocky.

‘More like “Ruthless Paul Collingwood Accepted My Offer of a Blowjob and Still Didn’t Give Us More Overs.’ Scotty said, laughing.

‘That _is_ ruthless - ‘

Scotty seemed happy enough to creep around the edges of the truth, like dipping your toe in the sea and running away at the first sight of a wave coming, like he’d got a lot of youthful energy to direct towards tempting fate. Maybe it was just because Paul was that much older or he felt the consequences for him were that much greater, but he couldn’t honestly say he saw the appeal. Still he’d turned to Phil and laughed, saying, ‘Worst blowjob of me life, that.’

‘Oh no. I just imagine it’d be all - his little eager face looking up at you -’

‘Ugh - Jesus -’ Paul said, making out like he was disgusted, bringing his hands up over his face.

‘Nah he’d ask you for a statistical breakdown afterward -’ Woody said while Scotty cracked up and Paul fantasised about giving Scotty a clip round the ear and adding to the list of rules he had; no texting, no phone calls, certainly no sexting and no fucking blowjob jokes.

Back in Paul’s hotel room, Scotty was sat on the bed next to him as they watched the footie highlights, looking down the neck of his beer bottle as though that might tell him something and then he said, ‘Isn’t that what Freddie Flintoff said about you and all. That you were ruthless, that you just chucked him once you’d got established in the team?’ 

‘Jesus. I don’t know. Did he?’ It came out more defensive than he intended. It was typical of Scotty to remember something like that, most likely a throwaway line in an interview or article. Like how he knew everyone’s stats better than they did themselves, badgering around in team meetings _yeah it’s like in 2013, how you were battin’ at five and averaging thirty? Thirty one? - a season like._

Scotty snorted. ‘Oh my god - were you fuckin’ him and all?!’

‘Don’t be ridiculous. C’mon - just -’

‘It was a joke!’

‘Yeah? Not funny though, is it? I’m not -’

Scotty rolled his eyes. ‘I was just worried you were gonna ruthlessly chuck us, that’s all.’ His fingers were picking the label off the bottle he held in his hands, little damp scraps of paper dropping to the bedspread.

‘We’re not in a relationship, so, y’know -’ Paul said quickly, humorlessly, watching Scotty’s fingers.

‘Fucksake -’ Scotty said, almost under his breath, shaking his head and staring straight ahead at the tv.

 

Maybe it was The Ashes, maybe that had been what distracted him that summer. Woody and Stokesy. His lads. Trent Bridge and Nathan Lyon’s stumps clattering to the earth, Woody already leaping off the ground as the umpire’s finger pointed to the sky. Watching it over and over; on Sky and Channel Five. The line from the academy to the Championship win, the One Day win to the winning wicket at The Ashes. Even as the County Championship season withered and died, winless from mid-June to the last day of the season, increasingly forced team talks and Paul got spooked, started tweaking too much, his own move up to four stuttering and drying up his runs. All the lads saying how they wanted to finish the season well, so determined and maybe Paul expected too much of them sometimes. Standing in the ruins of that season should’ve been a sign but he’d seen worse dragging through the long tail of his career both domestic and international and he’d seen those stumps thud on the ground and so he’d thought _next year’ll be better._

 

 

He had told Scotty with two fingers on his breastbone, Scotty’s shirt caught and crumpled around his arms, belt half-undone. All the possibilities of an early-summer afternoon coming in with the smell of cut grass through the open window, there on Scotty’s unmade bed and Paul had looked at him, flushed cheeks, trapped half-undressed and pinned by Paul’s fingertips. It was inextricable for him, the form and the function; the desire for Scotty’s body and the pride in the things it could do. He wasn’t the skinny lad he used to be, Paul knew with his hands on Scotty’s warm skin and his eyes on him in the gym, in the nets, working until the sweat slid from his body. There was a line of self-congratulation too, after all Paul was the one who’d moved him up to three and Scotty had got over a thousand runs a season since and now he’d heard from his sources, from Straussy, _you know we’re going to send the selectors up next week to watch Scott Borthwick - it’s a real possibility - they’d be stupid not to call him up._

‘I think you’re gonna get a call up -,’ he’d said, ‘Pakistan - y’know, what with Nick Compton -’

Scotty had got up on his elbows, wide-eyed, ‘You serious?!’

Paul had told him was, then one hand on his cheek added gruffly that he was proud of him and Scotty had coloured, mumbled something like _ah give over_ and kissed Paul because it was easier, wasn’t it. It had been two years since Scotty had told him he loved him but he’d never once said it back. Scotty’d climbed on top of him, smiling against his lips and Paul had tugged the rest of the shirt right off his arms and thrown it decisively to the floor with all the other shirts. 

 

+

 

Early summer and Paul had already started to feel uneasy. A shattered thumb and split webbing in late June had him sitting on the sidelines for nigh on a month, watching frustrated as Scotty’s early season good form fell precipitously off a cliff, as he started getting out for single figures. The chatter around him getting a call up dying to whispers of him having bottled it. The usual suspects on Five Live talking about how the pressure had clearly got to the lad. Paul signed a new contract in July amid the queasy decision to let the Colonel go - _can’t keep him just for the short form, not with our debt._ He was gone so quickly he missed his own benefit match. And then Rocky, stripped of his One Day captaincy when he finally gave in to Surrey’s advances. They were after Scotty as well, Paul knew it, everyone knew it and it was clearly affecting the lad, as the start of the Pakistan series came and went, as Paul’s promises dried to ash in his mouth and Scotty got jittery and distracted.

There was almost an inevitability to their losses, the way it would feel sometimes like the map was tilted towards the South, that everything that rose in the North would drain out to the South eventually. Tipping and weighted under the heavy august sun, the grass all yellowing and desiccated on the sides of the road, air shimmering through a fleeting heatwave and Paul was more and more certain that he was in the eye of the storm. Held for a moment but there’s only so long you can stay there, eventually you’re going to get hit with the full force of what’s coming, because he’d taken too much, wanted too much. Stuck two fingers up at it all, thinking his age and experience would be balast enough. Thinking every loss was not a sign. Hadn’t stopped him waking more mornings than he’d care to count with Scotty’s arm loose around him body. Just resting there. The past night creeping up on him, inescapable as his own shadow. Whatever weak excuse he gave to his wife for not coming home while Scotty drunkenly kissed his neck. Whatever weak excuse was ticking over in his brain for if anyone asked what they were doing together so early, coming out of Paul’s hotel room. He’d got haunted by it, ready to run, flashed glance over his shoulder and a foot across the threshold, reciting an explanation for his fingerprints all over Scotty’s body. 

And then sometimes, laid beside him, Paul thought he could see the ghost of eighteen year old Scotty, come to the surface like the bones under his skin; the ghost of that slight, rawboned lad with an accent like a wet paper towel in his mouth. Like there were all these previous versions of him echoing in his body, calling Paul out from the past, clammering in judgement of his gaze. The rare times he was back in Durham, seen him before the winters overseas had made his skin look like summer all year, when his hair was longer, all elbows and angles and pink tongue sticking out the side of his mouth in concentration. That one test match against the West Indies at the Riverside in 2009 where he’d taken two catches as a substitute fielder, overflowing with excitement and going around getting high-fives off all the England lads. Paul’d bought him a drink after and Scotty’d talked his ear right off, battering him with questions and Paul hadn’t really known him then. 

_Oh Badger - he’s trouble that one - mad as a box of frogs,_ Jon Lewis, then second team coach, had said fondly of him. And Paul swore he could see him small and boyish standing next to Stokesy, grinning and doubled-over with laughter, _he’s trouble;_ the self-recrimination for even having known him that young, for having known him before he was quite beautiful, like it made everything that happened subsequently unseemly even if Scotty’d been in his twenties when it started. Like the mere fact of him being on a timeline that led from this version of Scotty to the present day implicated him in something. 

So that summer when Scotty didn’t get the call up it was easy for Paul to tell himself he should’ve stopped it. Just some woozy summer indiscretion that had gone on too long. It didn’t matter what Scotty wanted, should’ve left him alone. Easy for him to tell himself this was some uniquely terrible captaincy; he was too close, too obviously blind to Scotty’s flaws. Too swayed by the way Scotty’s flinty, slow batting recalled his own; the way his acrobatic catches did. He’d just heard what he wanted to. Never should’ve told him like it was a sure thing. Weighed on him until he made the call, got Scotty over to stand in his cavernous kitchen like a stage set. Always too much space and Scotty marooned in it, holding on to his cup of tea, slightly baffled. Paul had never made him one before. 

It was about the club, Paul explained in his gentle steady voice as Scotty’s face fell, as he got stiller and stiller. It was too much, the threat of relegation, threat of fines, the fact they’d probably never have another test match at the Riverside. If they could hold on to everyone else it’d be a miracle like, cause it was bigger than Paul, bigger than Scotty. More about the North East, more about the club and it’s history and the roots spread like road on a map under them all. Bigger than Scotty, more about the people, more about what it meant to people. In the face of all that what were they really?

Paul could see Scotty fighting to control his expression and he found himself oddly comforted by it. That part of him that still thought it important to teach Scotty things, to mentor him, was comforted by this show of resilience. _That’s it, don’t let ‘em know they’ve got you._ Scotty was a tough lad and people forgot that about him. Paul didn’t, he knew Scotty as he knew himself. 

Scotty sniffed, nose twitching, errant eyebrow hoiked shakily above his right eye.

‘You’ll be alright.’ Paul said, carelessly slipping into captainly banalities.

Scotty looked briefly shocked then shook his head, jaw set. ‘Fuck you,’ he said quietly, ‘you sanctimonious fuckin’ cunt -’

When the door slammed, Paul sat down on a kitchen chair, took a deep breath, leant over elbows on his knees, hands up over his face, not moving. Not moving while around him the midsummer sun finally started to dim, setting the chrome to glow and then the shadows lengthening and chasing across the floor. 

Scotty wasn’t at training the next day and it was easy to say with a practiced steadiness that he’d phoned Paul up, said he was sick. Easy for everyone to accept that, only Paul could clearly delineate the spaces he’d left behind. When Scotty returned he squared up to Paul and spoke right through him, his face blank. Aggressively reaching for normality. It was worse than if he’d just ignored him.

Luckily there were roles to inhabit that were bigger than himself with room to hide inside; a captain or a husband or a father; the safety of having a niche. Build up a good enough life for yourself, it can stand a little internal rot. It can stand you spending a little longer in the shower because you have to press your forehead against the tiles for a minute or two and just not move. It can stand you pulling your car over to the side of the road on your way home in the fading light with pain in your chest like a physical decay. Waking up in the sepulchral hours, two, three am, the weight like a concrete slab over your head. Last dregs of a dream and thinking _I should’ve had him in the Autumn._ But he still got up every morning with no more or less protesting, only the undeniable ache in his joints. _I’m only forty,_ he thought rubbing his knee, his back and from the outside nothing had changed. Get up and take the kids to school. Save the team from relegation and it’ll all be worth it.

 

Deep in the morass of the late-season he’d started taking Stokesy with him - whenever he was around - to ECB meetings, crisis talks. Bunny teasing him about it _is he your enforcer, mate? Aye,_ Paul had said, _just stands by the door with his arms crossed so they know not to fuck with us._ And Bunny had said how Stokesy should get _fuck the ECB_ tattooed on his knuckles. _It’d fit and all. Might affect his chances of selection though._

See Stokesy was more perceptive than people gave him credit for, sharper too, in small bursts, take you surprise if you got hit by one. And after the worst had happened he’d turned to Paul driving them back from another meeting and said;

‘C’mon Colly, mate - what’s going on with you and Badger? You fall out or something?’

Paul’s heart turned right over in his chest. ‘What?’

‘I dunno, seems like you’re pissed off with him and he won’t tell us shit so -’

‘Y’know what? I am pissed off with him if I’m being honest with you, fucking off down South, fucking Surrey.’

‘I _knew_ you were. Well - they do pay the most to be fair like -’ Ben said, turning off the motorway, ‘lad’s got to keep himself in trips to Fenwick’s.’

‘Yeah- that’d be it -’ Paul sighed heavily, ‘you’re not going though?’

‘Nah Durham for life, me -’ 

‘No, never get rid of you I suppose.’

‘Y’know you shouldn’t be too hard on him, it killed him making that decision. I went round his house and he had a little fuckin pros and cons list up in his kitchen.’

‘Yeah? Jesus -.’ Paul said quietly. Scotty in his kitchen, writing the lists in his neat handwriting, pinning them up so’s he could see them every time he went to fetch a mug and Paul wondered which column his name was under. 

Scotty had pulled him aside a few weeks back, a hand on Paul’s arm like he’d forgotten. Stood in a corridor somewhere, Scotty looking at the floor or over Paul’s shoulder, wearing an old club hoody a bit big for him and Paul thought _that’s mine, that is._ Washed up on Scotty’s body from last year, the year before, how it happens when your lives are so tangled - carelessly taken from a dirty laundry basket or the floor. And for a bare slip of time Paul had taken it as a sign. But then Scotty had said _I'm gonna go to Surrey, thought you should know,_ glancing up at Paul’s face at the end to see how he’d take it. _Right,_ he’d said, _yeah, of course you are._ Scotty had shook his head slowly _I knew I shouldn’t’ve._ And Paul, to his shame, had said _did you honestly expect us to be happy about losing thousands of runs a season? Y’know between you and Rocky - not to mention your wickets. Not that there’s many of those these days._ He’d looked at Scotty then, the hurt palpable in the turn of his lips, crease of his brow and Paul had only wanted to kiss him. Hands gentle on his face like parenthesis, like the containment of something and then kissing the hurt right out of him. _It’s always about the fuckin’ club with you,_ Scotty had said walking off. Paul had shouted after him but he didn’t turn around. 

_It feels like the right thing to do,_ Scotty said in the papers. Said how he wanted to be a Northern boy lost in London, the excitement of it. Big adventure that, tumble down South, pick yourself up and dust yourself off. See yourself as one of a new whole, as a point on a wave; both very specific and nothing in particular. 

 

+

 

Total collapse at the PCA Awards, could barely remember now who it was who’d told him, casually like it was something he should already know. Relegated, a forty-eight point deduction, four in the One Day, two in t20. He almost dropped his glass. Made his excuses to leave, through endless doors, door after door and then outside, gulping the London air. Close, claustrophobic, even in September, not like the clear biting air of the North East, not at all. 

He’d sat on a concrete step watching the traffic, headlights brightening and then receding, the noise rushing louder and then softer again. Across the road, Hyde Park, the orderly trees and grass, every blade, every branch planned and deliberate. The bend of the path reaching for a natural meander - here’s where your feet go, don’t stray. Trying to steady his heartbeat, his breathing - everything in its place, breathe in, breathe out. It never really got dark in London and the sky above was filtered through the orange irradiance of the streetlights, like the city encroached up into the atmosphere. Got into his body as well. All the aches and pains winding up through it until they filled every part of him; sinews snapping, bones crumbling, his whole body would be dust soon. What was inside himself was more of the same; decay on decay. Woody bowling over after over on a fractured ankle. Stupid to think there would be another year.

A while longer and he heard footsteps behind him and Scotty’s voice, sunk low with concern and saying, ‘Colly -?’ The way it had been all season, Scotty seeming to appear out of nowhere and Paul turned to look at him, the weight of every bad decision hung in his head. 

‘Y’alright, lad?’ Scotty said.

There was no sense in telling him now, he'd find out in time, as was proper, when the whole team did.

‘Yeah - just feeling a bit sick. Must be getting old -’ 

Scotty sat down next to him, cautiously like he wasn’t sure if he should. Body coming to rest with his knee slightly pressed to Paul’s. Paul looked at his face, the way things look in dim light, softened to their essential geometry, the curve of his mouth, lines of his jaw and cheekbones and Paul thought how he wasn’t a kid anymore, unfair of him that he always thought of Scotty that way, as someone insubstantial almost when here he was steadfast and concerned on the cold concrete step. 

‘Yeah?’ Scotty said. Paul shrugged slightly, the sleeve of his suit jacket brushing against Scotty’s when he moved his shoulders. The wide road, the streetlights, the trees, the grass, the flags resting on their poles. Felt like the very lines of him were blurry, memory was a skiddy thing and he felt himself rounding the corner on something.

‘D’you think I should retire?’ 

Scotty frowned, stirring the shadows on his face. ‘No.’ he said firmly. Paul turned to face him, his hand slowly falling into the narrow space between them, until it reached Scotty’s, squeezing his fingers gently. A bus went past, its windows leaking light, fifty people or more inside and it could be that none of them knew who he was. The road after was empty and he leant in as the taillights retreated and kissed Scotty. Felt Scotty’s whole body start, a sharp intake of breath but he didn’t pull away. Like the first time they’d kissed a little bit of _fuck yous,_ a little bit of something unwinding, four years ago and he couldn’t quite stop himself. And also not like the first time - where he’d caught every laugh that came out of Scotty’s mouth - this was more some dark shaky part of him pressed to Scotty’s lips until Scotty pushed him away.

‘I can’t. I can’t - my girlfriend’s inside - I -’ He trailed off, moving away slightly, not looking at Paul and Paul gripped Scotty’s wrist.

Lately he’d found himself felled by memories of things he never should have done, things that never should’ve happened. How he’d picked leaves out of Scotty’s hair, his face brindled by the shifting shadows of the sunlight through the trees. Done it too tenderly, pinching stems between forefinger and thumb. Worried now that every tender motion had shown too much of him; thumb on Scotty’s cheek, rubbing off a smear of green from the lichen on the tree bark. Scotty laughing the way he always did when Paul took too much care of him; half-fond, half-indignant. That afternoon when they were supposed to be golfing, waylaid somewhere remote, a roadside copse, but still a stupid idea. And for all that Paul didn’t like to tempt fate, he did very much like Scotty’s skin exposed to the sunlight, the muscles in his back and shoulders under the palm of his hand. 

But his hand was on Scotty’s wrist now, holding it, thinking how Scotty didn’t belong here, getting lost on the tube, always having the wrong accent, like he was breaking that line Paul thought they were all on stood looking out over the Riverside that night after they’d won the Championship. _They won’t love you like I do,_ he thought.

‘You really couldn’t have stayed one more season?’ Paul said, the cracks in his voice a shock to him. Scotty shook his head, biting the inside of his lower lip. 

‘Let us go -’ he said quietly, shook his head again. ‘ _One more season -_ can’t even say it, can you?’

Paul dropped his wrist and Scotty stood up, turned away and went back inside. The door opening, briefly filling the air with the sound of laughter and voices before it closed again and the silence settled all around him. 

 

In a few days Paul would fly out to Dhaka to meet up with the England lads and then, come the winter, Scotty would be off to New Zealand - changing seasons in a day, chasing the summer sun. The winter would turn to spring and whatever pre-season they could cobble together on no money in the second division but Scotty wouldn’t be there. He’d be in the smart pre-season outdoor nets at the Oval or his loose-limbed body would be running up the Vauxhall End or the Pavilion End, the soft air coaxing and caressing the ball into a sneaky turn or tricksy drift. Three feathers fixed on his chest. Paul would look around the gym, beside him on the bench in the changing room, stood in the slips; No Scotty. Making empty spaces and absences all around the ground.

Waking up in his hotel room the morning after the PCA awards, Paul already felt the loss of him, the way time was always slipping around these days, skittering off the pillow and escaping through the crack in the curtains and anyway, it could be his last year. He’d be forty-one after all. One last fight to see them back up in division one and then that could be it. So Scotty wouldn’t matter much. He’d turn up at the Riverside the first day of the pre-season, in the pallid sun, the way the grass smelt stepping out onto the field, the rightness of it, the sense of coming home, the same as it was every year. The same as it was before Scotty and after him as well. Lumley Castle and the River Wear. Just one year more, his last year, spring to summer to autumn. 

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> Ch. 1 title from Souled Out!!! by Conor Oberst  
> Ch. 2 title from Unfair by Pavement 
> 
> I may fudge the odd few cricket details but I did not make up Paul Collingwood's Madonna playlist.
> 
> [lordsanga](http://archiveofourown.org/users/lordsanga/pseuds/lordsanga) is my patron and enabler.


End file.
